The vans started bright and early at 6.30am on the journey to Christchurch for the annual Easter Sports Tournament. The journey was far from uneventful with a five car pile up just 2 car lengths ahead of the vans on the Rakaia Bridge. Whilst OSCA members checked up on those involved and acted as traffic wardens, panic set in for the OSCA Cultural Concert performers who were in a rush to make it on time for their big debut. However, this didn’t hold them back. Arriving just in time, Otago and Southland set the standard for the beginning of the tournament by winning all three sections of the Cultural Concert T

alent Contest. Jason Wong’s entry “180 Seconds” was the winner of the Multimedia section and Gabriel Smith won the Open section with his own Spanish guitar composition. The highlight of the Concert was the OSCA dance group “More than a Wu-man”. With a combination of humour, Chinese opera and hip hop, the performers Brittany Wong, Lilian Pang, Jenny Hu, Patrick Truong and Jono Wu blew the audience away. All won well deserved $100 cash prizes.

Basketball, Badminton and Touch all got underway shortly after the Opening Ceremony with OSCA teams competing in all these sports. That evening indoor soccer and tennis were contested. There were several competitive and social entries in the tennis, with the OSCA pairs almost taking a clean sweep of the event and winning the tennis overall. Later that night the social for those 18 and over was held at Café Bleu, giving everyone an opportunity to unwind and start the Easter partying.

There were early starts had by most, with the basketball beginning at 9.00am and continuing until 7pm. There were many closely fought games, with the OSCA Women’s Overs team losing by four points to Auckland and the Men’s Under 17 team winning a close game against Canterbury in overtime. Running concurrently with basketball was the touch rugby competition. The OSCA team did not do so well and lost all their games. However all the players

had a lot of fun on the field. Miniball was also played over the weekend, with the team drawing two games and losing one. Later that evening the indoor netball was played, with OSCA fielding three teams, and two of them making it to the final “Super 6”. Worthy of a mention is the game between the OSCA social netball team and the OSCA competitive team (Team Hungis), where the social team triumphed in an EPIC VICTORY. The 18 and over social was held at Fat Eddies and Culture Club.

Sunday was another early start for the Women’s basketball. Hockey was also played on Sunday morning with OSCA entering a team with a wide range of abilities and experience. The team did well considering the very strong competition. Overall they made the semifinals at night and finished third. The basketball semifinals were played in the afternoon with 2 close Men’s Overs and Men’s Under 17s games. The Men’s Under 17’s won by just 2 points to make it to the final on Monday. Mabel

McCormick and Ray Lowe won the pair’s title and came 2nd in the triples for the lawn bowls held throughout the weekend. Lisa Yue came 2nd in the women’s table tennis final, beating many Christchurch representatives on the way. The 18 and over social was combined with the Canterbury Singapore Students Association at Liquidity making it a great night out. The under 18’s social held that night was at The Garage.

Monday started with the Athletics with only OSCA and Auckland turning up to compete. OSCA won the Men’s Relay, Mile and Women’s 800m convincingly. Basketball finals were held in the afternoon, with our Men’s Under 17 team being the only OSCA team to play. The rest of the finals were contested between Canterbury and Wellington.

The Presentation Ball for the Easter tournament was held at Hotel Grand Chancellor with a masquerade theme. OSCA’s Lynn Zhuo won the best dressed girl at the ball and a great time was had by all.

The OSCA miniball team performed very well at the Easter tournament, resulting in 2 draws and 1 loss. They played against two very strong teams from Canterbury and Wellington, creating a few tense moments for the onlooking supporters! Our miniballers demonstrated some great team work, making sure to include the smaller players as well, and were a credit to their coaches, Jason, Darren and Richard. A high turnout of OSCA families ensured all players were able to play, but were also given time to rest and observe the game. MVPs were awarded to Heidi Chin and Jasmine Ng at the post-Easter party. Congratulations to the whole team for their dedication and commitment, and special thanks to the coaches and all the organisers!